Tom Fronczak

Tom Fronczak is a founding editor of Destructoid, the largest independently owned gaming site on the Internet. After Destructoid was nominated for three Webby Awards and listed as one of the 25 most valuable blogs on the Web, he helped ModernMethod launch their film news and reviews site, Flixist.

Six years of journalism has allowed him to live in Rome, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York. Tom’s attended industry events such as CES and E3, but with a degree in 3D graphics he’s pursuing a career in game design and hopes to one day take part in GDC from the other side of the stage. He’s on Reddit far more often than Twitter, but you can reach him @Fronztoid.

Articles

We started publishing US based regional and national lists in 2012 in response to myriad emails from aspiring animators seeking advice regarding the "best" schools in the US. The US-centric lists have been well-received, so much so that we now receive frequent requests to publish rankings of international animation schools. ACR staff writer and Social Media Manager Tom Fronczak managed and authored this year's Top 100 International Animation Schools rankings. In preparing this year’s list, we surveyed over one hundred animation schools across the globe. Our end-goal is to give students access to ample information so they can make an informed decision about the school they choose to attend and the program they pursue.

Gone are the days of movies requiring one or a few 3D animated characters. Even casual television shows often have crowds of fake 3D people walking around in the background without viewers ever realizing it. Animating hundreds of humans walking down a street wouldn’t be efficient or reasonable for animators to do by hand, which is why the animation industry has seen the rise of a new type of program: crowd animation software.

Autodesk isn’t just dominating the 3D industry anymore! With a few SketchBook Pro iterations under their belt in the past few years, they’ve quickly assembled a digital drawing and painting application that’s essential for every form of 2D artist. What it currently lacks in true power, it makes up for in speed. Keep reading for a list of features worth checking out.

Smith Micro Software’s Poser series has been around since 1995 and is famous for giving you a wide library of gorgeous 3D characters and props to use. Artists that utilize those assets can now hit the ground running and spend more time focusing on animation and advanced modelling and rendering techniques instead of spending hours just making a character. It’s been five years since I last wrote about Poser and a lot has changed! Let’s take a look at the new features that are in Poser Pro 11.

Pixologic has declared that ZBrush 4R7 is the final iteration within the ZBrush 4 series, and that they are working on ZBrush 5.0. Instead of adding a few small updates, they’ve packed it with major additions to make ZBrush 4R7 one of the most extensive releases Pixologic has ever had. ZBrush 4R7 is also the first version of ZBrush that’s released with optional 64-bit support!

Maya is arguably the most famous animation software in the history of 3D animation industry, so let’s take a look at what’s new in Autodesk Maya 2016! Please note that Extension 1 and 2 features are available only to current Maya subscribers as part of the extension releases for Maya 2016 software.

Blender is one of the best things to ever happen in the 3D industry. It’s 100% free, with no asterisk. You can download the full version for free, you can use it for personal or professional studio projects for free, and you can even change the software and distribute it for free. Everything you make it in Blender is your own property, and it’s been used by famous game and movie companies as well as scientists performing research. The best part of all is how amazing it has grown to become over many years, with countless of award winning animations being made with it. Let’s take a look at what’s new in 2.77a:

Autodesk has unveiled the new tools and features that they’ll be adding to 3ds Max 2017. This software has been one of the most influential programs in the 3D entertain industry’s history, and we’re excited to the new software skills that you can use!

We started publishing US based regional and national lists in 2012 in response to myriad emails from aspiring animators seeking advice regarding the "best" schools in the US. The US-centric lists have been well-received, so much so that we now receive frequent requests to publish rankings of international animation schools. ACR staff writer and Social Media Manager Tom Fronczak managed and authored this year's Top 100 International Animation Schools rankings. In preparing this year’s list, we surveyed over one hundred animation schools across the globe. Our end-goal is to give students access to ample information so they can make an informed decision about the school they choose to attend and the program they pursue.

To help research the constantly evolving landscape of the job market, we sent surveys to hundreds of schools asking which studios actively recruited their students as well as which studios most often employed graduates. When choosing which of the hundreds of companies to include, I also considered what projects studios were working on, and even the quality of life at those studios regardless of salary. Studios are listed in alphabetical order: